OK, so for taking it apart to check for problems before lighting it up, this should help.
and
and
So the ““LED Cover”, parabolic shaped black thing presses down on the mcpcb” piece
That appears to be anodized — covered with something so it won’t conduct electricity.
When it is screwed down, could it contact the wires where they’re soldered?
Or is it shaped so it only touches right around the LED but leaves a gap for the wires?
Ive never really trusted a layer of anodizing for insulation, especially on something that gets turned repeatedly
Someone mentioned adding Kapton tape (not sure if on the emitter or the driver side).
That might be a bit safer.
Received my light today. At full throw the beam doesn’t look so nice at a wall. However, after walking with it outside for a short hour I can say that this is absolutely no problem outside. When floody it looks really nice, both indoors and outdoors
In general I’m quite happy with the light so far. I’ll see if I can outline some more impressions tomorrow
can someone chime in on all these issues so far? This is really discouraging. Anything to do with the lighted tailcap switch and the electronics involved?
Sharpie, what would one expect to see on a DMM if all’s well, and if something’s wrong?
(I can figure this out by the time my light arrives, but there are probably a lot of people who don’t even have a digital multimeter yet — and it’s got to be basic equipment for anyone using li-ion cells.
Got my 2 today, one worked one fried! Bad short melted both springs before I could get the tail cap off? Man did it get HOT! I think battery top came in contact with brass pill! Driver sit really deep in to the pill.
Walked the 5km to work today and took a few lights. I intentionally stayed late at work until after dark and walked home along the False Creek inlet in Vancouver. There, you can get a clear view of high-rises across the water. With the city’s light pollution, I still managed 400 meters of visible throw to a darker building and just over 500 meters to a lighter one, still easily visible. My guess is that it might reach 700-800 meters under really dark conditions? I didn’t have the room in my camera bag to take the SR52UT for comparison, so that will have to wait until the weekend. I suppose for the NW version, that’s decent throw performance, so maybe the brighter cool white version will reach close to the advertised 900 meters. I may still order the cool white model in a month or so since maybe the manufacturing glitches will have been sorted out by then.
I will say that the white-wall beam flaws are not an issue outdoors. Even when the beam is slightly defocused, showing a broad yellow fringe on a closer white wall, it looks good at a distance with minimally noticeable coloration while still throwing well. With larger amounts of defocus and a wide beam, the light really is a pleasure to use at closer distances too. I still prefer the beam “focus” from my MTE zoomy better, since it seats just past the LED’s perfect focus and combined with a narrow circular aperture, right over the XP-G2 LED, it gives a nice even round, focused hotspot without LED artifacts. However the Cometa’s beam is much wider, brighter and more useful when defocused, brighter with more throw when focused, has more modes, including moonlight (yay!), etc. etc. So yes, the Cometa is overall a far better light.
Now that I have generously lubed the Cometa’s zoom threads, the annoying metallic rattle is muted and while the zoom threads are still too loose for my liking, it is no longer quite as annoying. The other day, my pill actually came partially unscrewed after walking about 10km with the light in my bag, and the light wouldn’t focus properly any more. At that point, due to its presumed lack of sufficient pressure on the battery contacts, the light was also misbehaving in some very strange ways. I threaded the pill in tightly, as far as it can go, and tightened down the parabolic retaining disc and now it is fine again. There definitely seem to be some QA issues with the manufacturer. Thankfully, the soldering job on the LED star is decent on mine and there are no shorting issues (so far!). In the end, I am quite happy with my purchase, especially for the modest cost…
I think that if we can’t check the light before putting the battery in,it is prudent to try with a protected battery.Am I wright?
Edit.
What about feedback for the issues, to the Italians of the CPF Italia and BG?
I’m dealig with BG right now,via e-mail and they want a video, but my phone will not send it, because it’s too big, so I just sent BG 6 photo’s. I received 2 Cometa’s, earlier this evening, so I only opened one of them up, and used the Efest Purple 26650 4200mah, no problem with the first one. Later on in the evening I opened the second one, used the same Efest Purple 26650 4200 and the tail cap flickered when I screwed it tight then went out so with out thinking I naturally hit the button? Nothing, until I felt the cap get really hot. By the time I got it off The tail cap spring was almost completely GONE! I had set it on the table lens down, to get the cap off, dumped the battery on the floor, cleared the tube, and noticed the driver spring was melted flat too? The battery is unprotected, roughly 67.94mm in length 26.26mm in diameter. But what I did notice is the diameter of the Flat top is also bigger in diameter than the Basens and the junk Trustfire’s I got with my TR20-2. I get 16.18mm diameter on the Efest Purple 26650 4200’s, The Basens are 15.72mm in diameter, Trustfires are 13.90mm in diameter. and my Efest Purple 3500’s are 15.5mm in diameter? I rang out the emitter centering cap and cannot get it to make continuity , off the rub marks that are on it. Can find anything wrong with the leads on the driver, nicks, cuts, nothing? The driver is whacked, it didn’t like it a bit, I ran power to it and it’s just jumping all over the place? I can only guess the the battery top made contact with the brass pill or bent the spring and it made ground?
I share Hank’s concern about the ano not being a safe insulator.
Could someone show a picture of the underside of this part ? I am afraid it could make contact with the solder blobs on the star, could be the source of the shorts that are being reported.
